“Not consciously,” Snow says. “Is it too much?”
“No. It’s like you completed the circuit,” I say, gripping his other hand. “I feel kind of drunk, though.”
“Drunk on power?” he asks.
I giggle. “Shit, Snow. Stop talking. This is embarrassing.”
“Do you want me to pull back?”
“No. I want to look at the stars.”
“I’m pulling back,” he says.
And then he does. It feels like the tide going out—if the tide were made of heroin and fire.
I shake my head. I don’t let go of Snow’s hands.
“All right?” he asks.
“Yeah. You?”
“Fine.”
Now we’re just sitting on my bed, holding hands, Simon Snow and I. I can’t look at his eyes, so I stare at his cross.
“Your mother…,” he says. “When she came back, she said that thing about stars. ‘He said we’d be stars.’”
“I think that’s a coincidence,” I say.
“Yeah.” Simon nods. “Do you have any of it left? Like, did it stay with you? My magic?”
“Residually?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
I shake my head. “No. A feeling. A hum. Not power.”
“Can you do it on your end?”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re still touching,” he says. “Try to tap into it.”
I close my eyes and try to be open, try to be a vacuum or a black hole. Nothing happens. I try to pull at Snow, then. To suck at him with my own magic … Still nothing.
I open my eyes. “No. I can’t take it from you. I’ve never heard of a magician taking someone else’s magic. Can you imagine? If there were a spell for that? We’d tear each other apart.”
“We’re already tearing each other apart.”
“I can’t take it,” I say again.
“Do you think it hurt you, my magic?”
“I don’t think so.”
“So we could do it again.”
“We just did, Snow.”
He looks uncharacteristically thoughtful. I wonder if he’s forgotten that he’s holding my hands. Or if he’s forgotten what it means to hold hands. Or if he’s forgotten who I am entirely.
I think again about pulling my hands away—but Snow could light fires in my palms at this point, and I wouldn’t pull away. It feels like he has.
“Baz,” he says, and it’s not unprecedented for him to say my name, but I know he avoids it. “This is stupid. If we’re going to be working together, you can’t keep pretending that I don’t know.”
“Don’t know what,” I say, yanking my hands back.
“Don’t know about you. What you are.”
“Get off my bed, Snow.”
“It won’t change anything—”
“Won’t it?”
“Well, it would make things easier,” he says. “How can we discuss what we know about vampires when you won’t even admit that you are one?”
“Get off my bed.”
Snow stands up, but doesn’t stand down. “I know. I’ve known since our fifth year. How’re we supposed to help you if you’re still keeping all these secrets? Like, why did you start school late this term? And what happened to you? And why are you limping?”
“That’s none of your business,” I hiss. “None of it.”
“You’re right, but you said you wanted my help. So you made it my business.”
“I’ll tell you whatever I think is relevant.”
“We’re supposed to find out who sent blood-sucking vampires to kill your mother, and you are a blood-sucking vampire. You don’t think that’s relevant?”
As if I can just admit that. Out loud. On the record. As if every other magician wouldn’t gladly light me up if they knew it to be true.
As if Snow himself hasn’t been trying to expose me every day for seven years.
I clamp my jaw shut.
I should leave. Go back to the Catacombs. But Snow’s magic has wiped me out—I’m not sure I could stand now. So I just close my eyes.
“I’m done with you today,” I say. “I’ve been struck by lightning twice in the last twelve hours, and now I’m just done.”
49
SIMON
Agatha wants to talk to me after our Magic Words lesson.
She hasn’t said a word to me since we broke up—she hardly even looks at me—so when she approaches me now, my initial response is to look at the floor and try to walk around her. She has to grab my sleeve to get my attention, which is awkward for both of us.
“Simon,” she says. “Could I talk to you?”
She looks so nervous; she’s biting her bottom lip. I have to admit, my first thought is that Agatha misses me. That she wants to get back together.
I’ll say yes, of course. I won’t even make her ask. We can go right back to how we were. Maybe I’ll even tell her what’s going on with Baz—maybe she can help.
Then I think about Agatha being in the close quarters of our room, close enough that Baz can smell her pulse—and decide that I won’t tell her about everything, not right away.
But I will take her back.
This has all been such shit. Ignoring each other. Sitting apart. Acting like enemies when all we’ve ever been is friends.